Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

Delta bringing back free meals in coach for 12 long-haul domestic flights, including from BOS

United still charging for the FAs to spit on you
 
jass said:
Delta bringing back free meals in coach for 12 long-haul domestic flights, including from BOS

United still charging for the FAs to spit on you
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I don't know why people are so enamoured by free YC meals. I worked directly in the industry and now work in a capacity once removed and travel 150k miles each year. DL likely won't garner any yield premium in any of three markets they'll offer them from here. As it is they had the least capacity, least frequency and was among the lowest total revenue operator-second to UA BOS-LAX in Q3 16 (most recent quarter available). The picture is even worse for SEA with DL dead last on all measures.

Offering free meals on certain flights in main cabin will likely confuse passengers and crew members, especially since the same offerings are offered for purchase in other markets. It's worth noting from JFK they will reportedly be offering an international style tray set-up with special meal requests, whereas these non-JFK markets will be bulk loaded sandwiches and fruit & cheese.

I'd rather bring something I'm guaranteed to like and I'm able to eat than depend on GateGourmet or SkyChefs to provide a soggy sandwich.
 
LH421 said:
I don't know why people are so enamoured by free YC meals. I worked directly in the industry and now work in a capacity once removed and travel 150k miles each year. DL likely won't garner any yield premium in any of three markets they'll offer them from here. As it is they had the least capacity, least frequency and was among the lowest total revenue operator-second to UA BOS-LAX in Q3 16 (most recent quarter available). The picture is even worse for SEA with DL dead last on all measures.

Offering free meals on certain flights in main cabin will likely confuse passengers and crew members, especially since the same offerings are offered for purchase in other markets. It's worth noting from JFK they will reportedly be offering an international style tray set-up with special meal requests, whereas these non-JFK markets will be bulk loaded sandwiches and fruit & cheese.

I'd rather bring something I'm guaranteed to like and I'm able to eat than depend on GateGourmet or SkyChefs to provide a soggy sandwich.
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Do you fly coach? For us peasants who fly coach, a meal on board is a nice plus in addition to Delta's new IFE system.

Side note: I remember the days when DL served steak in economy... on a STL > BOS flight of all things!
 
datadyne007 said:
Do you fly coach? For us peasants who fly coach, a meal on board is a nice plus in addition to Delta's new IFE system.

Side note: I remember the days when DL served steak in economy... on a STL > BOS flight of all things!
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Fly YC plenty. Generally if a flight is less than four or five hours I don't see the value in US carrier domestic first especially when you can get a decent Economy Plus/Comfort+/Main Cabin Extra seat and wifi.

I don't doubt that a free meal is nice and people will for the most part take it if offered. I'm just questioning the commercial merits of doing so, implementation challenges for crew members and confusing passengers. Flight attendants at US carriers are often very slow to respond to new service changes and often don't bother reading and adhering to the memo or elearn outlining how the service is to be delivered.

Passengers are also easy to confuse-just go LAX and see all the angry passengers denied entry to the Admirals Club thinking their domestic F to BOS/DCA/etc grants them access (which until about three years ago did grant access, with fare restrictions), when AA only provides class of service based access to domestic premium cabins to MIA & JFK from LAX.

DL has very astute people running their operation but some of their decisions and ambitious plans haven't panned out. My hunch is this will be one of those. I personally don't see Derek Kerr/Robert Isom (AA) and Scott Kirby (UA) seeing the value and ROI following this one. IMO if DL did so on a larger scale perhaps they would, but an onboard meal is more of Annie's to have, and US-based passengers will quickly retreat to the kvetching about airline food particularly when the F/A informs then they only have the veggie wrap and passenger wanted the turkey sandwich.
 
LH421 said:
I don't know why people are so enamoured by free YC meals. I worked directly in the industry and now work in a capacity once removed and travel 150k miles each year. DL likely won't garner any yield premium in any of three markets they'll offer them from here. As it is they had the least capacity, least frequency and was among the lowest total revenue operator-second to UA BOS-LAX in Q3 16 (most recent quarter available). The picture is even worse for SEA with DL dead last on all measures.

Offering free meals on certain flights in main cabin will likely confuse passengers and crew members, especially since the same offerings are offered for purchase in other markets. It's worth noting from JFK they will reportedly be offering an international style tray set-up with special meal requests, whereas these non-JFK markets will be bulk loaded sandwiches and fruit & cheese.

I'd rather bring something I'm guaranteed to like and I'm able to eat than depend on GateGourmet or SkyChefs to provide a soggy sandwich.
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What are you basing this on? The average fare paid on DL vs. VA, AA, B6 and UA?
 
LH421 said:
I don't know why people are so enamoured by free YC meals......
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Youre making the same mistake many airlines have made in recent years.

In the business world, it's all about metrics and measuring success. How much revenue does x provide.

Except thats wrong when it comes to repeat business and long-term customers, because you cant measure customers that are stolen.

Ironically, businesses used to understand this. Its cheaper to keep a customer than win one back.

IE: Given the choice between United and Jetblue I will fly Jetblue if the price is within $50. Why? The superior entertainment and free food.

But how does United measure that? They can measure that removing snacks saved them .22 per person, but they cant measure that given the choice between the two airlines, I took my business to a competitor due to this policy. They also cant measure that I will shit on them at every oppertunity.

Fuck United and their horrible seats, their lack of IFE, their lack of snacks, and the horrible restaurants in their airport terminals (EWR).

So Delta brings back free food. Great, if they are within $50 fro United I will select them for my business. And I will tell my friends that I like Delta and that United is garbage.

And you cant measure that quarter over quarter. But you will be able to measure it in a couple of years when the industry satisfaction surveys are out.
 
jass said:
Youre making the same mistake many airlines have made in recent years.

In the business world, it's all about metrics and measuring success. How much revenue does x provide.

Except thats wrong when it comes to repeat business and long-term customers, because you cant measure customers that are stolen.

Ironically, businesses used to understand this. Its cheaper to keep a customer than win one back.

IE: Given the choice between United and Jetblue I will fly Jetblue if the price is within $50. Why? The superior entertainment and free food.

But how does United measure that? They can measure that removing snacks saved them .22 per person, but they cant measure that given the choice between the two airlines, I took my business to a competitor due to this policy. They also cant measure that I will shit on them at every oppertunity.

Fuck United and their horrible seats, their lack of IFE, their lack of snacks, and the horrible restaurants in their airport terminals (EWR).

So Delta brings back free food. Great, if they are within $50 fro United I will select them for my business. And I will tell my friends that I like Delta and that United is garbage.

And you cant measure that quarter over quarter. But you will be able to measure it in a couple of years when the industry satisfaction surveys are out.
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You say you are willing to pay more and perhaps a small number of others will as well, but time and time again U.S. consumers have demonstrated they care most about low fares, on-time flights and arriving at their final destination with their checked baggage. I agree there can be value in investing in onboard product (my almamater once had the best onboard product and is now dead last among major network carriers) but discretionary main cabin passengers aren't willing, by and large to pay up. There's a reason things like More Room Throughout Coach failed, and instead increased segmentation and ancillary offerings for people to choose and pay for the products they value has prevailed.

The airline industry is very metric driven and cost focused. At any different time and in any given market certain carriers will have a slight product advantage and beyond FlyerTalk types and inviduals working within in-flight or onboard product most of the traveling public doesn't know or care, especially if it's soft product elements like catering in YC. JetBlue does look at their customers, onboard service and overall brand differently than anyother carrier. It's part of their DNA and they run a highly customer focused organization.

In sum, good for the passengers forced to fly in cramped quarters on the DL 73H to LAX/SEA (and soon SFO on the 75J) but IMO from a commercial standpoint this won't provide any return on investment and only raises issues in operational, service delivery and managing passengers expectations across their network.

P.S. I agree Newark is a dump and the lack of branded food options isn't good.
 
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jass said:
But how does United measure that? They can measure that removing snacks saved them .22 per person, but they cant measure that given the choice between the two airlines, I took my business to a competitor due to this policy. They also cant measure that I will shit on them at every opportunity.
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Yeah, they actually measure this stuff constantly. Including the shitting on them part.
 
^Awesome. I'm psyched about Edinburgh especially. I was there for a few days in December and want a whole lot more.

I just hope they're successful. These flights are bookable now. I checked a random set of dates in August and the flights are under $300 r/t to EDI. You can't beat that. Even in "Lowfare +" which includes checked bags, meals, and seat assignments the fares are a little over $300. Again, you can't beat that.

On a side note, has anyone flown transatlantic on a narrow body? I'm incredibly hesitant to do that. Having the space to stretch on a wide body is fairly important to me on long-haul flights. I mean, I'd do it for $300, but that makes me nervous.
 
Lrfox said:
On a side note, has anyone flown transatlantic on a narrow body? I'm incredibly hesitant to do that. Having the space to stretch on a wide body is fairly important to me on long-haul flights. I mean, I'd do it for $300, but that makes me nervous.
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Yes; used to occasionally fly BOS-Manchester, UK on AA's 757 (mid 2000s) for work before they cancelled that service. It wasn't horrible, but when compared to AA's 777 BOS-LHR at the same time, there was no comparison. First, no matter how good the service is, having only one aisle for people to try to go to the bathroom is problematic on long flights. But even worse than the 1 aisle is the total lack of congregating space...it'd be one thing if they removed a row or two of seats near the facilities (which AA did not do with the 757 at the time). I understand on regional flights they ask you not to stand around, but on a 6hr flight, it's kind of unreasonable to ask all 180+ people not to move.

My general sense is that I would have given the coach experience on the BOS-LHR widebody an A- at the time, and the 757 experience a B- in the same timeframe. The difference was not enough for me to prefer a connecting flight arrangement to MAN - it was still worth getting to my destination non-stop. But one simply can't say its the same product. To AA's credit though, I'll say that the meal service/FA competence was generally equivalent to their widebody service. They seemed to use legit international-trained FAs despite the narrowbody.

So I think to fully answer your question about whether narrowbody is OK, you'd have to find out about the seating arrangement (any open space added?) and FA capabilities/level of service.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Lrfox said:
On a side note, has anyone flown transatlantic on a narrow body? I'm incredibly hesitant to do that. Having the space to stretch on a wide body is fairly important to me on long-haul flights. I mean, I'd do it for $300, but that makes me nervous.
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Flights to the UK, Spain, France & Germany are essentially the same (if not shorter in some cases of tailwinds) flytime as flights from Boston to the West Coast, which are regularly served by narrow body aircraft. Europe isn't really long-haul from Boston/Providence. You're only spending up to like 7 or so hours in the air.
 
Lrfox said:
On a side note, has anyone flown transatlantic on a narrow body? I'm incredibly hesitant to do that. Having the space to stretch on a wide body is fairly important to me on long-haul flights. I mean, I'd do it for $300, but that makes me nervous.
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I flew WOW Airlines to Amsterdam via Iceland on narrow bodies... IIRC it was a 5 to 6-hour flight and a 3-hour, both on narrow body planes. Very comparable to my flights to the west coast.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Yes; used to occasionally fly BOS-Manchester, UK on AA's 757 (mid 2000s) for work before they cancelled that service. It wasn't horrible, but when compared to AA's 777 BOS-LHR at the same time, there was no comparison. First, no matter how good the service is, having only one aisle for people to try to go to the bathroom is problematic on long flights. But even worse than the 1 aisle is the total lack of congregating space...it'd be one thing if they removed a row or two of seats near the facilities (which AA did not do with the 757 at the time). I understand on regional flights they ask you not to stand around, but on a 6hr flight, it's kind of unreasonable to ask all 180+ people not to move.

My general sense is that I would have given the coach experience on the BOS-LHR widebody an A- at the time, and the 757 experience a B- in the same timeframe. The difference was not enough for me to prefer a connecting flight arrangement to MAN - it was still worth getting to my destination non-stop. But one simply can't say its the same product. To AA's credit though, I'll say that the meal service/FA competence was generally equivalent to their widebody service. They seemed to use legit international-trained FAs despite the narrowbody.

So I think to fully answer your question about whether narrowbody is OK, you'd have to find out about the seating arrangement (any open space added?) and FA capabilities/level of service.

Just my 2 cents.
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Thanks. The congregating space is big. Being able to get up, walk to the lav next to one of the galleys, grab some snacks or a drink, and stand for a few, and go back to the seat makes a huge difference. It also helps to not have to worry so much about food/bev carts. I know Norwegian is using 737-Max's on the routes but I don't know what the layout is (I'm guessing it's pretty dense- no Premium from what I can tell).

datadyne007 said:
Flights to the UK, Spain, France & Germany are essentially the same (if not shorter in some cases of tailwinds) flytime as flights from Boston to the West Coast, which are regularly served by narrow body aircraft. Europe isn't really long-haul from Boston/Providence. You're only spending up to like 7 or so hours in the air.
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They're not so far off, you're right (I've been from BOS-DUB in under 5.5 and from BOS-SFO in close to 6). However, Europe-BOS can definitely exceed 7 hours (especially from anywhere beyond the British Isles) because of headwinds. It might just be me, but 6 hours or so is about what I consider to be the extent of my comfort level on a narrow-body. Much longer than that and I feel like I'd struggle (especially with a strong headwind on the return from Europe). I fly BOS-SFO probably more than any other route and by the end of that on an A320, I'm usually spent. I'd almost prefer 10+ hours in Y on a wide-body vs. 6 on the narrow-body.
 
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